Pony Express – Grab your saddlebags!

Ride into the Wild West

Pony Express was an immediate board game hit with our family!

Maybe it was the cool artwork and board layout that first caught our eye. Or just maybe it’s all the crazy elements within – rolling card symbol dice to determine your move, or rolling the dice to hit the other player’s piece in a duel, or rolling the dice to take out the Indians, or bluffing about the dice you roll to move farther ahead. Any way you slice it, it still adds up to fun for our family.

Can the whole family enjoy Pony Express?
While we really like Pony Express, we don’t think it’s a good fit for younger kids. Not that they wouldn’t love rolling the dice to knock over another player in a duel, but more so because it involves bluffing to get farther ahead – and for younger kids that just amounts to lying. And we don’t like teaching our youngsters to lie. As they get older, they’ll better understand the aspect of bluffing in games, but we’ll go with the 10+ age recommendation.

Comments: 8

Re: Pony Express
I really like the fun cartoony artwork (which is also drawing me to dice-town) but wonder if the bluffing, and the “Poker” element ever feel, how do I put this… introducing gaming elements that you might not want for your kids? I like your comment about the bluffing, but I never learned how to play poker and wonder if this “teaches” Poker in some way. Otherwise, this looks really fun!

We haven’t felt like it really teaches Poker. I just asked my 12 yr old son and he said the same thing – nope. I felt like it was more like Yahtzee – get certain number of the same, three of a kind, etc. but no real Poker playing. I still don’t like the bluffing element for younger kids though.

Re: Pony Express
I really like the fun cartoony artwork (which is also drawing me to dice-town) but wonder if the bluffing, and the “Poker” element ever feel, how do I put this… introducing gaming elements that you might not want for your kids? I like your comment about the bluffing, but I never learned how to play poker and wonder if this “teaches” Poker in some way. Otherwise, this looks really fun!

We haven’t felt like it really teaches Poker. I just asked my 12 yr old son and he said the same thing – nope. I felt like it was more like Yahtzee – get certain number of the same, three of a kind, etc. but no real Poker playing. I still don’t like the bluffing element for younger kids though.